Mad Men and Medusas Quotes

“The language of lists is not symbolic; it is an enumeration given meaning only if one recognizes it as the accoutrements of the subject.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria

“To facilitate this collusion, the lie the hysteric tells creates confusion. The cited evidence for the lie may be real evidence but it is utterly irrelevant; the speech used is the opposite of symbolic - it is ‘diabolic’ , that is it jumbles things up deliberately. This diabolical speech is defined by the philosopher Gemma Corradi Fiumara: A pseudosymbolic process which has the appearance of symbolism but is not conducive to dialogic interactions is ‘diabolic’ in the etymological sense of the word — the Greek term ‘diaballo’ being a compound word of the word dia (‘across’) and ballo (‘I throw’). Hence a ‘diabol’ could be something that flings things across, and as a consequence jumbles them up.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria

“Identifications with dogs, or possession by dogs who themselves are good imitators, have featured in descriptions of hysteria since the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greek hysteric experienced her body as being filled with an uncontrollable rampaging, like an animal gnawing her from within (which is quite a good description of uncontrollable desire). Her body was experienced or described as occupiedby a wild dog.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria

“Nearly everybody mentioned sees doctors. Dora has made a profession of making sure they cannot help her. Nevertheless, she keeps consulting them. Why? At one point in the case history, Freud comments:
The motives for being ill often begin to be active even in childhood. A little girl in her greed for love does not enjoy having to share the affection o f her parents with her brothers and sisters; and she notices that the whole o f their affection is lavished on her once more whenever she arouses their anxiety by falling ill. She has now discovered a means o f enticing out her parents’ love, an d will make use of that means as soon as she has the necessary psychical material at her disposal for producing na illness.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria

“But Dora’s illnesses are mimetic copies: she had modelled herself on the hysterical aunt with the wasting disease. When she complains of piercing gastric pains, Freud asks her ‘Who are you copying now?’ Imitating we know not who, a specific constellation of her symptoms also indicates that through them she has gone through an imaginary childbirth. Her answer to Freud’s questions about bedwetting suggest that she may have been confused wTith her brother, for she too had been enuretic in childhood.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria

“Hysteria involves a relationship — one cannot be a hysteric on one’s own. It always engages the other, inducing a
reciprocity or a refusal. If the other refuses to participate in the free flow of mutual identification (the folie a deux), then the hysteric demands to be a spectacle only something one can look at or observe.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria

“(...) wanting to replace him, but not wanting to because of his love for him. It would also have involved an identification with what Freud imagined it would be like to face death.”
― Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria